University Times

New international phone rates prompt outcry, change by Telecommunications

Pitt's Telecommunications office has overbilled University units by at least $130,000 for international telephone calls since July, according to Telecommunications director Bruce A. Hutchison.

But he said Telecommunications plans to:

* Adopt new, lower rates on May 1;

* Re-process Pitt international calls made between July 1, 1998, and April 30, 1999, and

* Issue credits for overbilling to affected units.

Controversy over Pitt international phone rates first rang out in July. That's when Telecommunications adopted new, higher rates intended to eliminate the $300,000 deficit the office had run the previous fiscal year for international calls.

Glema Burke, assistant director of the University Center for International Studies (UCIS), remembers the shock of last July's phone bill.

"The Provost's office had warned us that the University's rates for international calls were going up," she said. "But when people saw what the changes actually were, everybody just flipped out."

In June, Telecommunications charged UCIS and its four area studies programs about $1,500 for international calls, Burke said. The following month, after the new rates went into effect, the bill totaled more than $3,000, she said.

UCIS wasn't the only unit to protest. "There was an immediate outcry," Hutchison said. "It was a remarkable jump" in rates.

Too remarkable, as it turned out. Telecommunications had put in place the wrong rates table, Hutchison said.

In September, Telecommunications issued credits to affected departments and began charging them based on an AT&T rates table called Tariff 27.

But Telecommunications continued to get complaints.

"Many faculty and staff were telling us they were making international calls from home and then getting reimbursed by their departments, because it was cheaper than calling from Pitt. It's really not in my best interest to do business that costs people more than they would pay at home," Hutchison told the University Senate's budget policies committee (BPC) on April 9.

Hutchison blamed poor financial modeling for the overbilling.

A new Telecommunications billing system, to be implemented this year, will allow for more accurate modeling; it also will enable Telecommunications to bill in six-second increments, he said. The current billing system rounds charges up to the next full minute.

By December, an investigation by Telecommunications confirmed that it was overcharging for international calls, Hutchison said. "Normally, we would have begun gathering data after six months. But based on the furor, we began to do it earlier," he said.

Even so, BPC members said, Telecommunications was slow to respond to faculty and staff complaints about the new rates.

"We need to do better," Hutchison acknowledged. But he added that Telecommunications had to rely on Pitt Cost Accounting staff for help, and staff from that office were busy with other projects.

The University's new rates — based on AT&T's Tariff 16 (state and local government rates) — will be competitive with residential rates, while enabling Telecommunications to break even on international calls, Hutchison said.

"I'm not fully persuaded by your case, although I suppose it represents progress," BPC chairperson Richard Pratt told Hutchison. Pratt said his committee will continue to study international calls billing. Hutchison agreed to give BPC the data Telecommunications used in determining its rates increase last summer.

— Bruce Steele